If you love Dan Brown's historical puzzles, breakneck pacing, and cliffhanger chapters, these 15 authors deliver. From Steve Berry's Cotton Malone adventures to James Rollins' scientific mysteries, here are the thriller writers who mix history, conspiracy, and page-turning suspense into unputdownable adventures.
Berry is Dan Brown with better history and less religious controversy. Where Brown chases Holy Grails and papal secrets, Berry tackles forgotten presidential letters, Confederate gold, and Templar treasures with actual historical grounding. His protagonist Cotton Malone—rare book dealer and ex-spy—solves puzzles through research, not just running.
The Templar Legacy kicks off Berry's series with Knights Templar secrets, but unlike Brown's version, Berry's historical details check out. Same breathless pacing, fewer conspiracy theorists screaming. Perfect if you loved Brown's formula but wished he'd fact-checked more.
Rollins is Dan Brown meets Michael Crichton—historical mysteries solved through cutting-edge science. Where Brown's Robert Langdon lectures about art history, Rollins' Sigma Force operatives are military-trained scientists who decode ancient secrets using quantum physics and genetics. It's intellectually satisfying action without the art history degree.
Map of Bones takes the bones of the Biblical Magi and adds medieval alchemy, genetic manipulation, and Vatican conspiracies. Rollins explains the science clearly enough to feel plausible, which makes the impossible seem inevitable. Brown's pacing with harder science.
Cussler swaps Brown's museums and cathedrals for shipwrecks and underwater archaeology. His hero Dirk Pitt is James Bond crossed with Jacques Cousteau—more concerned with raising lost submarines than decoding Renaissance paintings. It's treasure hunting adventure rather than intellectual puzzle-solving, but the historical hooks are equally compelling.
Raise the Titanic! does exactly what the title promises—recovers the famous wreck for strategic minerals. The audacity is the point. Cussler writes bigger, louder, more absurd adventures than Brown, but with the same love of "what if this lost thing still matters?" Perfect for Brown fans who want less philosophy, more submarines.
Reilly takes Brown's formula and strips out the lectures. Where Brown stops the action to explain Renaissance symbolism, Reilly just keeps sprinting. His books read like movie screenplays—short chapters, constant cliffhangers, elaborate set pieces involving crocodiles, helicopters, and impossible stunts. It's Brown's structure with Indiana Jones' recklessness.
Seven Ancient Wonders sends Jack West Jr. racing for pieces of the Seven Wonders before rival nations. Zero historical accuracy, maximum fun. If Brown's art history lectures slow you down, Reilly offers pure velocity—same ancient mysteries, no footnotes required.
Preston & Child write Dan Brown through a darker lens—where Brown's conspiracies involve secret societies and Vatican archives, theirs involve monsters, curses, and things that shouldn't exist. Agent Pendergast is Sherlock Holmes meets southern aristocrat, investigating cases where science and the supernatural blur. It's Brown's historical intrigue with gothic horror.
Relic turns a museum exhibition into a crime scene when something starts killing people in the halls. The explanation involves Amazonian tribes, evolutionary biology, and museum politics. It's cerebral like Brown but creepier—same puzzle-solving, more body count.
Khoury is the closest thing to Dan Brown's clone—so similar publishers marketed him as "the next Da Vinci Code." He writes the same Templars-and-Vatican mysteries, same protagonist-racing-through-Europe structure, same conspiracy reveals. The difference? Khoury's a screenwriter, so the pacing is even tighter, more cinematic.
The Last Templar opens with horsemen robbing a Vatican exhibition in Manhattan. It's shameless Brown homage—Templars, religious secrets, female archaeologist sidekick—but executed with competence. If you've read all Brown and just want more of exactly that, Khoury delivers without pretending to innovate.
Meltzer applies Brown's formula to American history—Founding Fathers' secrets instead of Renaissance painters, Washington D.C. instead of Paris. He uncovers real conspiracies buried in the National Archives, making his puzzles feel more grounded than Brown's speculative theories. Same structure, better documented.
The Book of Fate involves Masonic codes in presidential communications and threats to the current president. Meltzer writes faster, shorter books than Brown—less philosophizing, tighter plotting. If you loved National Treasure more than The Da Vinci Code, Meltzer's your author.
Mariani writes Dan Brown for readers who prefer action over academia. His hero Ben Hope is an ex-SAS soldier turned treasure hunter—when faced with historical mysteries, he's more likely to kick down doors than consult archives. It's Brown's globe-trotting structure with a Jason Bourne protagonist.
The Mozart Conspiracy investigates the composer's suspicious death through kidnappings, shootouts, and European car chases. The history is present but abbreviated—Mariani assumes you want thrills first, lectures second. Perfect if you loved Brown's set pieces but skipped the art history explanations.
McDermott turns Brown's mysteries into demolition derbies. His archaeologist heroes find ancient wonders—then promptly blow them up during elaborate action sequences. Where Brown's Langdon avoids violence, McDermott's Nina Wilde survives collapsing temples, helicopter attacks, and avalanches. It's Indiana Jones pacing with Brown's archaeological hooks.
The Hunt for Atlantis does exactly what it promises—finds Atlantis, then stages massive battles in its ruins. McDermott writes pure popcorn entertainment: short chapters, huge set pieces, zero pretension. If you loved Brown's treasure hunts but found the violence tame, McDermott cranks everything to eleven.
Mosse writes Dan Brown for readers who prefer character over plot velocity. Where Brown races through locations checking boxes, Mosse lingers—dual timelines in medieval and modern France, focusing on atmosphere and female protagonists. She explores Cathar history and Holy Grail legends with more nuance and less conspiracy theory.
Labyrinth alternates between a modern archaeologist and her medieval counterpart, both protecting ancient secrets. It's slower, more literary than Brown, but rewards patience with richer historical detail. Perfect if you loved Brown's history but found his pacing exhausting.
Sierra is Spain's answer to Dan Brown—same Renaissance obsessions, same Vatican conspiracies, but written with European sensibility and deeper Catholic theology. Where Brown treats Church history as plot device, Sierra grew up inside it. The conspiracies feel less sensational, more institutional.
The Secret Supper investigates Leonardo's Last Supper through a 15th-century inquisitor hunting heresy. Sierra knows his Church history intimately—the details are accurate, the theology complex. It's Brown with less bombast and more genuine religious scholarship. Perfect if Da Vinci Code interested you but the historical liberties bothered you.
Kuzneski writes Brown's formula with military protagonists—former Special Forces operatives instead of professors. His heroes solve ancient mysteries between firefights. The historical puzzles exist, but they're solved by people who can also breach doors and clear rooms. It's Brown meets Brad Thor.
The Prophecy sends ex-military partners chasing lost Nostradamus predictions. The structure mirrors Brown—ticking clock, exotic locations, hidden knowledge—but the protagonists carry weapons and know how to use them. Perfect if you wanted Langdon to occasionally punch someone.
Bourne (pen name for journalist Jonathan Freedland) applies Brown's conspiracy formula to Jewish mysticism and modern geopolitics. Where Brown excavates Christian secrets, Bourne mines Talmudic tradition and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The result feels more contemporary, less medieval than Brown's European focus.
The Righteous Men weaves murder mystery through the Kabbalistic concept of the 36 righteous people who keep the world from collapsing. Bourne adds ethical complexity Brown often avoids—his conspiracies have political weight. It's Brown's structure applied to Judaism with journalistic rigor. Fresh territory for readers exhausted by Templar plots.
Egeland is Norway's Dan Brown—same historical conspiracies, same archaeological mysteries, but focused on Nordic and medieval European history rather than Rome and Renaissance Italy. He explores Viking runes and Norse mythology the way Brown explores Catholic art. Regional variation on the same formula.
Relic (note: different from Preston & Child's book) follows a Norwegian archaeologist uncovering secrets in medieval manuscripts and holy relics. Egeland knows Scandinavian history intimately and writes with Brown's breathless pacing. Perfect if you've exhausted Brown's Italian settings and want northern European mysteries with the same conspiracy-thriller structure.
Eco is the intellectual godfather of everything Dan Brown does—except Brown writes thrillers while Eco wrote literature. Where Brown simplifies medieval mysteries for airport readers, Eco demands you grapple with semiotics, philosophy, and untranslated Latin. It's the same material, opposite approach. Brown is Eco made accessible; Eco is what Brown aspires to.
The Name of the Rose sets murder mystery in a medieval monastery filled with literary puzzles and theological debates. It's dense, challenging, rewarding—everything Brown isn't. But if you loved Da Vinci Code and wonder what serious literary fiction looks like using similar material, Eco is required reading. Warning: much slower, infinitely deeper.
